1. Three Examples of Beautiful Design Stating the Reasons
1. Airbnb
Airbnb’s products are amazing. First of all, because they maintain the experience of the user using their product independent of the platform. That’s because of their approach to design, the technology stack that they’re using to build their apps, and some other reasons.
Airbnb was one of the pioneers to use what’s now is in trend for many companies — Design System(Airbnb has called their system slightly different — DLS which stands for Design Language System).
2. Dropbox
Dropbox does a great job both in terms of product design as well as visual design.
In my opinion, it’s very hard to build all-white product that it’s actually great to perceive with your eyes, and that's why every time I use Dropbox’ products, I admire how clean, easy-to-use and great their products are.
Their design team definitely cares about the details: e.g., Paper is very well thought out that they handle such cases as user's device losing their internet connection in a beautiful way.
I think that Dropbox' services also conform with the rule I follow when designing something: there’s nothing to remove in their designs, everything is in place, and there are no unnecessary details.
3. Telegram App
I love the design of Telegram, because disregarding of on which platform you install it, it looks like standard messaging app. Nothing more than that. Hence, the user has no reason to learn how to use it, because it really just straightforward.
But, in my opinion, Telegram has some issues in terms of product, because of it evolved from being just a messaging app to something more: like a platform for interaction with different bots, and platform for channels and news resources. Basically, it has become not just a communication tool, but a platform to consume, buy and interact with different types of content(similar, for example, for WeChat in China, but it's a different topic to discuss).
4(Bonus). Intercom
I could not’ve mentioned these guys. Even though, their product is not that big, and, for the user it’s just a small circle button which expands to a chat on some company’s website, it solves the problem of communication between the user and business and serves as a tool which helps to guide user through the product she uses, it does all great, and that’s what makes Intercom's product design beautiful.
2. Pick one example from Question 1 and suggest improvements
I’ll pick the product that I use most of the time nowadays — Telegram. As I stated in the previous question, Telegram has evolved as a product and it brought some problems with it that are not currently solved. Current design of Telegram is determined for being used as a communication tool(or messenger if you wish), but I think there’s a huge percentage of its users that are also using something that is called“Channels”. Currently, Channels are stacked on the same screen as messages, and what it does is: overloads user with information stream, and shuffles not-so-important stuff(news from channels) with what is more important to user(messages from other people). I'd separate them off, in order to solve the problem with information overload, and the problem with users missing messages from others.
3. Current Trends in Product Design
1. AI, ML & Algorithms(Algorithmic Design)
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning in Product Design has born pretty much a long time ago, but, in my opinion, it hasn’t shown its full potential yet. One of the great examples of using algorithms in the product is done by Netflix: they use CV technology to extract movie heroes and generate posters for their website, the system also automatically runs experiments and determines which posters work better(God, if I had such resources, I’d be in paradise)
2. Conversational Interfaces
Again, not so new, but still relevant in my opinion. With spread of such products as Telegram, Messenger and WeChat, to name a few, people more and more use messengers not just for communication with other people, but for communication with products, businesses and other services.
If not to take Siri, Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortana into the account, there are products which are based only on conversation with user, and literally look like messenger, e.g. Ada – personal health assistant, foursquare did the experiment with launching chat-based product named Marsbot, there are even banks launching in Russia, which will only be available in a number of messengers in the first place.
3. Cross-Platform
So, this one is very important. In my opinion, nowadays, it’s not enough to build just a product and have it on one platform. The service which you provide to users should be as widespread across different platforms as it possibly can. It’s important because, by making available your product across a variety of platforms(I mean not only iOS, Android, Web, but also Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, Slack, Telegram, Messenger, etc.) — you’re bringing your customer closer to your product, and it's easier for you to convert the user into a paying one(or making the action that you want the user to perform).
4. Design Systems
More and more companies nowadays create its own design systems. While a few years ago, only big companies would think of such, e.g. Google with Material Design, or Apple with its modern design which was first introduced with iOS 7, nowadays even small startups think about building its own, and actually they build them — at least in terms of UI elements which are used in the product.
Another trend which has not started today, but is actual by the moment of writing. To prove that it is relevant, it’s enough to look at what has been happening at CES in Las Vegas this year: a tremendous amount of companies has been integrating their products to be available to use with voice personal assistants(primarily, Amazon Alexa). It’s fascinating and curious to see, how more and more companies are hopping on the train of VUI.
Another good proof of trend’s relevance is local: in Russia Yandex has launched its personal assistant called Alisa past year, and is going to launch hardware soon. Speaking of hardware HomePod from Apple is on its way to launching soon, Siri is available easier than ever before through recently launched AirPods, Google and Amazon keep their hardware products, which make possible for user to interact with their assistants at home, in hotel, in a car and other places, up-to-date.
6. Stories(as a way to consume content)
Well, Snapchat. They’ve created, in my opinion, a new way to consume content, and made consuming content in portrait mode relevant. In the past year, many services were launching features similar to Snapchat or whole products, e.g. VK launched stories in the apps and website as well as live-streaming tool, Instagram has developed on its Stories product very well, alongside with Facebook — it was a great move to integrate Instagram stories into Facebook, which increased activity in Stories on Facebook by some degree. Stories appeared even in banking apps — Tinkoff, at the end of the past year, has integrated a feature inside its mobile application.
4. Design a Better Project Card
Questions
I’ll start off with questions that I think need to be answered either by me as a product designer, or my colleagues.
Question: Is there really a necessity to indicate that rewards are ready to be collected on the Discover page?
Hypothesis: Again as with the question below, I think that it’s may be not a thing to show on the Discover page. There may be some kind of notification near profile button in the header that’d tell the user that there’s something“new” in her profile so she’d go and would check it out.
Question: Is there really a necessity to indicate the amount with which you’ve funded the project / forecasted the project on the Discover page?
Hypothesis: No. Why? I think that user wouldn’t go to the discover page to view the projects that she funded or forecasted. I think that she'd go to the profile page to view her backed projects.
Question: Is there a need to show any info about successful projects in the card?
Hypothesis: My thoughts: may be no. And, as with the next question, I think there’s no need to show successful projects by default in the discover page(or at least show them in the first place). There may be a filter which would allow user to view the successful projects, though.
Question: Do we need to show failed / cancelled and other“negative” projects?
Hypothesis: no, we don’t need to show them for user, especially by default on discover page. There’s no necessity to show user negativity in the first place. In my opinion, it’s more reasonable to show projects, which are either could be forecasted or funded by user.
Question: Do we really need to show that much info on the project card?
Hypothesis: is that the answer is no: design is done well when there’s nothing left that you can remove, not in the opposite way.
Analysis of Current Project Card Design
So, the first step, before I start designing new card layout and design, is to understand what’s actually bad in the current design, and what needs to be fixed.
Current Card Design
Stage of project indication is presented in multiple color varations and features hard-to-understand presentation, i.e.“Crowdfundning with tick” or“Crowdfunding with cross” is harder to understand than“Crowdfunding ended” or“Crowdufunding cancelled”. In my opinion, it’ll confuse the user.
1. Three Examples of Beautiful Design Stating the Reasons
1. Airbnb
2. Dropbox
3. Telegram App
4 (Bonus). Intercom
2. Pick one example from Question 1 and suggest improvements
3. Current Trends in Product Design
1. AI, ML & Algorithms (Algorithmic Design)
2. Conversational Interfaces
3. Cross-Platform
4. Design Systems
5. Voice User Interfaces
6. Stories (as a way to consume content)
4. Design a Better Project Card
Questions
Analysis of Current Project Card Design